MSc Project Management in the Built Environment

This module aims to develop your knowledge and understanding of how behavioural and organisational issues influence project performance and how they can be harnessed to effectively deliver projects.

It includes an overview of management approaches, an exploration of the issues around understanding self and understanding others, team theory and leadership, communication, conflict theory and resolution, conflict resolution strategies and learning from experience in project environments and also conflict and negotiation in the context of personal and cultural differences.

To a large extent the module adopts a problem-based learning (PBL) approach. Here, PBL is facilitated through problem-solving exercises that are based on prominent case studies and game play exercises.

This module prepares you to manage projects within the built environment through the use of advanced planning and control techniques. You will learn and apply a range of skills in project planning, scheduling, monitoring and control that includes cash flow and capital expenditure analysis, value management, risk and opportunity management and the use of software-based decision support tools as used in industry.

This module starts with the consideration of project procedure and participants and their roles in different types of projects in the built environment. Through the aspects of law needed to understand construction procurement and contracts, to the various forms of building contracts and procurement procedures, the module covers alternative procurement routes and current trends in procurement in both the public and private sectors, placing a particular emphasis on collaboration and best practice. Furthermore, it covers the basics of planning law and building regulations and looks at specific issues related to contract terms, professional liability and property torts.

Design techniques and technological innovations and how they are used and managed are key elements in the development of our built environment. This module introduces these as considerations that should be made at the inception and briefing stages of a project, not as afterthoughts later in the process. It also recognises that design and construction are not devoid of the human dimension - the contexts within which a construction project is situated, including influences of climate, culture, and surrounding and supporting infrastructures are also important. There is also an examination of the design and building processes, and the end-product-buildings, as continuously changing entities. You will not study developments in design and technology in isolation, but as part of a continuously innovating industry. In this respect, managing Building Information Modelling (BIM), developments in off-site construction and low carbon construction are covered as part of the module.

This module provides you with the fundamentals of research design highlighting the difference between qualitative and quantitative research paradigms and demonstrates how data can be both gathered and analysed and how deductive arguments can be used to produce valid generalisations from data. It also provides you with an overview of particular research techniques such that they can choose and develop those tools most appropriate to their particular research project.

This follows on from Applied Research Methods and aims not only to generate new knowledge or insights but also to develop your capacities to undertake rigorous research, to plan and execute an extended project and to communicate complex ideas effectively in words and graphically. You will work with a supervisor from within the School to produce an original piece of work of publishable quality, generally, through conducting your own primary research and presenting your findings in a professional manner.